Daniel Greenberg passed along word that his GDC panel, "Gaming the Laws of War: Can Real Consequences Mean Real Fun?" is now available for free and unfettered viewing through the GDC Vault video archives.

UBM Tech Game Network, the organizers of the Game Developers Conference and the owners of website Gamasutra, announced that 26,000 people (game developers, executives, members of the media) attended the 2015 Game Developers Conference, making it the biggest year so far.

Last night at the Indie Games Festival Awards, host Nathan Vella, the head of Capy Games, took a few minutes to speak out against the Internet hatred and harassment that has taken place over the last seven months on social media - mostly aimed at females journalists, and game developers.

The Open Gaming Alliance (OGA) will release its seventh annual research report at the end of March in conjunction with market research firm DFC Intelligence. The new report, which focuses on the PC gaming sector, offers predictions on the sector from the end of 2014 up until 2018.

Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney has decided that it is time to make Unreal Engine more competitive with stiff competition from the likes of Unity and other free game development tools. Unity has been free for some time, and some believe that it is cutting into Unreal Engine's market share in the game development space (no, we do not have stats on whether or not this is true, but this is at least the perception in some circles - ed.).

Tactical Simulations Interactive (TSI), a company formed by former Strategic Inc. employees, has announced a new system called "Gateway" that allows players to transfer their favorite characters across multiple role-playing games that support the system. TSI’s first game, Seven Dragon Saga, will support Gateway, and Harebrained Games and inXile have committed to supporting the system as well.

Double Fine founder Tim Schafer will once again serve as the host of the 15th annual Game Developers Choice Awards.

He'll be joined by Capybara Games founder Nathan Vella, who will serve as the Independent Games Festival awards. This year's ceremonies kick off at 6:30 PM on the evening of Wednesday, March 4th during GDC 2015 in San Francisco (at the Moscone Center).

For those who can't make it to GDC this year, both GameSpot and Twitch will be running a live stream of the show.

Meggan Scavio, General Manager for GDC Events, put out a short and friendly reminder today that there are rules that both speakers and attendees need to follow to make the Game Developers Conference a safe and happy environment for everyone. In her brief note to the development community, Scavio said that GDC is for everyone and anyone at the official venue during GDC week should act accordingly:

Organizers of the Game Developers Conference released new details on what games and developers would be part of this year's Indie MEGABOOTH Showcase exhibit. The exhibit, which is open to all GDC passholders, will be open at various points during the week of the 2015 Game Developers Conference, March 2-6 (Moscone Center, San Francisco).

The Indie MEGABOOTH Showcase highlights a collection of games from independent developers who have banded together to show off the latest and greatest indie games at conventions across the world in one large and sprawling space.

Game developers Brenda Romero and David Braben will be honored at this year's Game Developers Conference with special awards. GDC organizers announced that Romero will receive the Ambassador Award for helping games "advance to a better place," while Frontier Developments founder and Elite: Dangerous co-creator Braben will receive the Pioneer Award for producing breakthrough technological and game design milestones.

Organizers of the Game Developers Conference announced today that it has partnered with childcare provider KiddieCorp to provide childcare services for parents attending next year's GDC 2015 in San Francisco. The KiddieCorp team will "engage your children with a program they want to attend, providing you with that critical peace of mind so you can attend your GDC sessions and events worry-free," according to GDC.

Game Developers Conference 2015 organizers UBM Tech Game Network announce that it is now accepting submissions to present lectures, roundtables, panels, posters and tutorials through until Thursday, August 28th for next year's event. GDC 2015 takes place March 2-6 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California.

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) Europe today released results from its second annual European State of the Industry Survey, which reveals trends around regional development hubs, tax incentives and more. The survey is conducted annually prior to the launch of GDC Europe in August.

GDC Europe 2014 is organized by UBM Tech Game Network and runs from August 11-13 at the Congress-Centrum Ost in Cologne, Germany. It takes place in tandem with Europe's biggest video game trade and public show gamescom.

Hot on the heels of Epic Games announcing that it would offer a monthly subscription plan to allow anyone to license its Unreal Engine 4 technology, Crytek is offering a similar deal for its CryEngine technology - for about $9 less. Crytek announced this week during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco that it would offer the CryEngine for $9.90 a month per user.

Lucas Pope's popular game Papers, Please took home the top prize at last night's Independent Games Festival Awards. In addition to winning the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Pope's game was honored with awards for Excellence in Narrative, and Excellence in Design.

At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco today Epic Games announced that it is offering a monthly subscription to its Unreal Engine 4 game technology. This should allow indie developers who might not be able to come up with a large chunk of cash to license the engine outright a way to finance it over time.

At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco today, Google announced a new version of the Google Play Games Services that enables cross-platform multiplayer support for iOS and Android games. Play Games Services is a backend API for developers of Android, iOS, and even Web games that gives developers the ability to set up achievements, leaderboards, multiplayer and cloud saves using Google's cloud infrastructure and development APIs.

The "Father of the PlayStation" will finally be honored by the Game Developers Choice Awards for his accomplishments while serving as the CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment - bringing the masses Sony's very first home console and its subsequent iterations. Former Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Ken Kutaragi will receive a well-deserved Lifetime Achievement Award at the 14th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards.

Organizers of the 2014 Game Developers Conference (taking place in San Francisco this March) have confirmed the return of the GDC Play, the emerging/independent developer showcase. The 'Best in Play' awards will also be returning to this year's event.

GDC Play is a separate area of the San Francisco show that showcases emerging and independent developers with a series of tables and meeting rooms. It will take place at a new time this year - Wednesday, March 19 - Friday, March 21 at Moscone Center during the 2014 Game Developers Conference.

Finalists for this year's Independent Games Festival have been announced. The list of nominees for the biggest prize of the show - Seumas McNally Grand Prize - include such notable indie games as The Stanley Parable (Galactic Cafe); Papers, Please (Lucas Pope); Don't Starve (Klei); Device 6 (Simogo); Jazzpunk (Necrophone); and Dominique Pamplemousse in "It's All Over Once the Fat Lady Sings!" (Deirdra Kiai Productions).

The Independent Games Festival (IGF) opened submissions for the 2014 Independent Games Festival, taking place at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The deadline for the Main awards is October 19th, while the Student Showcase is October 31st. Finalists will be announced in January 2014. From there, finalist games will make their way to San Francisco to show off the latest builds at the IGF Pavilion on the Game Developers Conference 2014 ExpoFloor, to compete for nearly $60,000 in prizes.

During GDC last week in San Francisco research firms NPD, iResearch and Digi-Capital held a talk on digital games sales and revealed some interesting numbers on the space. According to data revealed during the event, digital game and downloadable content sales are growing at a rate of 33 percent year over year in the United States and Europe, while spending in China is expected to grow 10 percent annually for the next three years. Asia is going to be the most dominate region in the world when it comes to online and mobile games by 2016, according to the speakers.

During the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week Google's YouTube announced a new API for game developers that allows them to allow users to directly stream video from their games without using an external streaming service such as Twitch.TV or Ustream. YouTube streaming is already in some games - like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 - but the goal of the new API is to bring in-game streaming solutions tied to YouTube to far more developers.

Facebook was at the Game Developers Conference today in San Francisco throwing around a lot of facts and figures to show that it is still a popular and relevant gaming platform. The company said that over 250 million users are still playing Facebook games each month, accounting for around 20 percent of the social network's daily traffic. Facebook also claims that over 100 game makers generated over $1 million (each) or more last year. Collectively game developers earned over $2 billion in payouts.

The PC Gaming Alliance, a not-for-profit industry consortium dedicated to evangelizing the PC Gaming space delivered annual custom research results to PCGA members, and shared portions of the findings with the press at a news conference during GDC this week.

Atari founder Nolan Bushnell tells All Things D that the smart money is no longer going into smartphones as the industry shifts to focus on new platforms.

"All the money's out," Bushnell told the publication. "Do I really want to do a mobile game that's one of 300,000, where discoverability is everything? You really have to have a little more sizzle on the steak."

If you like free things then you may want to get in on this action. From now until March 31 you can play the beta version of Desktop Dungeons for free simply by signing up here and proving that you are not some sort of filthy robot (no offense to filthy robots out there).

Jake Solomon and the team at Firaxis Games have put together a video asking the community to watch them at this year's Game Developers Choice Awards at the Game Developers Conference in late March. From there the video kind of goes off the rails.

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Wymorence: For me it just boils down to the fact that, even at a giant company, when a game comes out annually it just gives it a vibe of being rushed out the door. And god knows Unity sucked some major lemur with all its bugs...03/31/2015 - 4:22pm

PHX Corp: I launched my spotify account today, and I kinda went a little overboard with adding music03/31/2015 - 3:59pm

Sora-Chan: Con't. Games like AC are a pain to someone like me who likes to play games in order. So when a game gets too many releases too quickly, it puts me off. Only exceptions are games that have no interconnected underlying stories like the FF games.03/31/2015 - 2:53pm

Sora-Chan: Wikipedia has rarely let me down on matters like this. But yeah... AC needs a break.. like two.. or three... or eight years.03/31/2015 - 2:51pm

Conster: There's 9 already?! I think I played 1, 2, and the ones inbetween 2 and 3.03/31/2015 - 2:23pm

Sora-Chan: Con't There are now Nine... of just the main entries into the series. There are 13 more in the "other games" department.03/31/2015 - 2:15pm

Sora-Chan: I tried to get into AC. Was having a decent time with the first one, at which point they had already released three titles. Then a fourth came out... then a fifth... the wall kept growing before I could finish the first.03/31/2015 - 2:14pm

Daniel Lewis: I think ubisoft should give AC a break before it's milked to death,and i'm a big fan of the games03/31/2015 - 1:15pm

Daniel Lewis: The only thing said i disagree with is the final quote on Men's experiences are seen to be universal but women are gendered,though doesn't anita say that games with male protagonists are male power fantasies,so in turn both are gendered03/31/2015 - 1:08pm

Daniel Lewis: i found the video to be much better than any of the TvW series and it's about time the positive women are put in the spotlight03/31/2015 - 1:06pm

Daniel Lewis: So feministfrequency released a positive female character video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXmj2yJNUmQ03/31/2015 - 1:05pm

Daniel Lewis: I think the guy who made the direct leak said it was an april fools joke when a real one was announced03/31/2015 - 12:43pm

MaskedPixelante: No way Nintendo would let information like that get out. Remember, they shut down a memoir about the localization of Earthbound by enforcing a 20 year old NDA on the author.03/31/2015 - 12:42pm

james_fudge: Conster: the larger issue is that Ind. does not protect LGBTQ+ people under state law03/31/2015 - 12:11pm

PHX Corp: @MP I think it is confirmed(not an April Fools joke) http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/31/nintendo-direct-confirmed-for-wednesday-april-1st/03/31/2015 - 12:00pm

Conster: Apparently Pence intends to amend SB101 so denying service isn't allowed - without explicitly protecting LGBT+ and while still allowing the many other things you can get away with now if it's motivated by your religious beliefs.03/31/2015 - 11:53am

MaskedPixelante: http://mynintendonews.com/2015/03/30/rumour-nintendo-direct-on-april-1st/ A supposed full leak of tomorrow's Nintendo Direct, so you can all laugh and laugh about how wrong it is.03/31/2015 - 11:35am

PHX Corp: http://kotaku.com/why-a-tekken-7-character-is-being-called-a-phoney-1694724959 Why a Tekken 7 Character Is Being Called a Phoney03/31/2015 - 10:08am